Stay on target

Here in New York City, Microsoft has a very Apple-esque physical retail store where you can buy everything from Surface tablets to Xbox One games. And it’s a lovely shopping experience. But if you have the clearance to go up a few floors you’ll find something else entirely: a dazzling broadcast studio for delivering eSports tournament coverage on the level of a cable news operation.

For a little over a year Microsoft has been running its own Twitch-style video game streaming platform called Mixer (formerly known as Beam). And a few months ago the tech giant opened the Mixer NYC Studio at the Flagship Microsoft Store to show what they think the best possible professional video game streaming should look like. Having now been inside the studio, I can say that vision is pretty on the money.

The shift in aesthetics alone makes going from the store below to the studio above feel like entering an unreal new world. The store is a mellow shopping experience while the studio feels like going on a TV party game show. Although the space is relatively small, it feels larger than life with its enthusiastic live audience clapping in front of massive monitors. Behind them, hosts and commentators like Jess Brohard prepare to explain to folks watching from home just what the heck they are looking at. Off screen there’s a giant inflatable Xbox controller called “Mr. Floaty”.

Then there are the stars themselves. Tonight’s tournament saw some of the world’s best Gears of War 4 players competing to earn pro points that would aid their rankings in later tournaments. Teams cycled on and off of the stage, playing on their gaming PCs and sitting on their gaming chairs. The podiums in front of them connected to personal cameras giving us great looks at the gamut of emotions the players felt during a match. Meanwhile, the walls behind them pulsed with colors related to that game. At a previous Hearthstone tournament, the lights replicated a fire.

I watched the tournament both as part of the audience (including a moment where the camera cut live to my face) as well as in the quieter green room where we could hear the action outside but watch it in a way closer to the folks at home. Comparing those two experiences, it was impressive how skilled the team of editors and directors in the control room, which I later toured, were at translating the live experience online. Knowing what players or audience members to cut to, how to set up hosts interacting with users in the online chat, making sure everything is lit right over the course of hours, quickly turning live footage into promos. It was professional in a way that’s still odd to see for covering people playing video games for money, even if that’s really the new norm now.

As for the tournament itself, while I’m no huge Gears of War 4 fan, it was pretty easy to get caught up in hype in this environment. The game’s space-controlling Escalation multiplayer mode features numerous rapid matches with raising respawn stakes that can lead to brutal upsets if one player can pull off multiple kills at once.

In the green room I talked with one of the competitors FatalStryke, a member of the competitive Gears scene since the franchise launched over a decade ago, and picked his brain a bit about the scene. I learned that making your weapons a different color is only for aesthetics, the game is still chock full of movement exploits, and that controller players use claw grips to combat the speed of mouse and keyboard PC players. And although FatalStryke’s team ultimately came in second, having even that added knowledge and human connection made me and my Doritos that much more invested in the finals.

Beyond providing an environment for journalists like me to get excited about competitive games they don’t really care about, the Mixer Studio also helps the folks that come to compete in it. Along with veterans, some teams featured local New York teenage newcomers using this as an opportunity to break into the tough scene. The winning team was called Bronx Zoo for crying out loud. Even if the winnings aren’t on the same level, the studio replicates much of the experience of competing in a big tournament, so it can help kids get used to the pressure and media training. Plus, it’s just nice to have your supporters cheering for you in real life as you virtually shoot folks for money and not for avoiding boredom on a couch like the rest of us.

Of course Microsoft would host a Gears of War 4 tournament in its own store, but it surprised me to learn some of the other games Mixer Studio holds community events for. Alongside shooters like PlayersUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege or sports game launches with athlete special guests, the casual (but still plenty competitive) cooking game Overcooked also got highlighted.

Meanwhile, I learned about plans to create some kind of tournament around upcoming cartoon shoot ‘em up Cuphead. Since the game is so brutally difficulty, perhaps the prize will go to whoever can just survive. And it’s pretty much a given the space will do something for the launch of the Xbox One X this November.

It’s no secret that in terms of pure sales numbers Microsoft is losing the console wars to Sony. But numbers aren’t everything, and it’s been fascinating to witness Microsoft’s circumvention strategy of focusing its still sizeable gaming presence more on pleasing the fans they already have more than ever. This means giving them more powerful boxes, letting them play more on PC as well as against players on other consoles, making the most of limited exclusives, and celebrating their competitive communities.

The professional celebration of community on display at the Mixer NYC Studio certainly can’t be cheap, but Microsoft has nothing if not money to burn. And if my entertaining time at this impressive live streaming tournament was any indication, Mixer Studio is a fantastic fan-friendly way for a video game company to burn money. Now I just need another excuse to go back.